HOLLAND – With the pressure on, the Calvin men's tennis team delivered, defeating rival Hope 6-3 on Saturday to clinch a berth in next week's MIAA Tournament.

Calvin needed a win against Hope on Saturday to advance to the MIAA Tournament. If the Knights would have lost, a three-way tie for third place would have been created and the Knights would have been out of the tournament due to tie-breaker rules.

Calvin did not go down that road however as it swept the three doubles points. Sophomore Taylor Asfour and freshman Matt VanWinkle pulled off an 8-5 win at No. 1 doubles while senior Tom Griffin and junior Matt Buesing won 8-5 at No. 2 doubles. Sophomores Jared Doezema and Anthony Vroon also won 8-4 at No. 3 doubles, giving the Knights all the momentum heading into singles play.

Calvin then held serve, splitting the six singles points to register the win.

Griffin was a 6-1, 6-1 winner at No. 2 singles while freshman David Brown (No. 5) and sophomore Gene Hill (No. 6) coasted to 6-0, 6-0 wins.

"It was a great team victory and I'm proud of the mental focus our team came in with today," said Calvin men's tennis coach John Ross. "We were disappointed by our effort at Alma on Friday. Give Alma credit for beating us but our execution Friday should have been better. We did a good job of putting that match behind us in short order and stepped up when we needed to today."

Calvin is now 9-8 overall and finishes tied for second in the MIAA standings with Adrian at 4-2. Due to a head-to-head tiebreaker with Adrian, Calvin gains the No. 2 seed for the upcoming MIAA Tournament and will host the Bulldogs in an MIAA Tournament semifinal match next Thursday at 4 p.m.